


Cloud Goes Back In Time Or Something I Guess????

by Nautilusopus



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: April Fools' Day, Gen, Humor, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 17:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18320108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nautilusopus/pseuds/Nautilusopus
Summary: Cloud goes to fix time or kill Sephiroth or whatever.





	Cloud Goes Back In Time Or Something I Guess????

**Author's Note:**

> You bastards want more time travel fix-it fic? Here. Fine. Take it. I wrote it in two hours. Let it not be said I never gave the people what they want. 
> 
> Thank you Kaley for proofreading this on extremely short notice.

Cloud took one last look around the Sector 5 church, getting his thoughts in order. He hadn't bothered saying goodbye to anyone. If everything went well, they'd never even know he was gone. The Planet had decided to give him a second chance to save everyone. If he just went back and changed the right things, maybe he could keep Nibelheim from burning entirely. Sephiroth would never go mad, Meteor would never fall. Aeris, Zack, his mother... he'd save them all. 

At least, that was the idea, before another Cloud appeared before him in a blinding flash of light, looking haggard. 

"Don't do it!" 

Cloud stared at the second Cloud. The other Cloud stared back. 

"Do... huh?"

"Don't change anything. I already tried it," said the other Cloud. "It doesn't go well."

"I -- we need to --" Cloud swallowed. "I have this whole thing planned out --"

"You're going to join Soldier and tell Sephiroth calmly about Lucrecia," said the other Cloud flatly. "Yeah. Cool. Great plan. You know he knew about her by the time he summoned Meteor, right?"

"Yeah, but that was after Jenova had a chance to get into his head," objected Cloud. "If I just explain to him --"

"-- that he was a product of parents that created him solely to be the company's murderpuppet, then he'll take it a lot better, sure," said the second Cloud. "The message wasn't the problem. It's just he's not a surprises kind of guy. He'll totally get it if you _calmly_ explain to him that his life is a lie. Y'know, the way _you_ totally got it when someone calmly explained your life was a lie to you."

"...You're mocking me."

"Well, if you were run through by an angry nineteen year-old having his mid-life crisis twenty years ahead of schedule, you'd be a little cranky too."

Cloud rolled his eyes. "Okay, fine. If I shouldn't go back and fix anything, what _should_ I do?"

"I don't know, save Zack or something?" said the second Cloud. "You could join the Turks, get info from the inside. Couldn't hurt to let him know about the ambush."

"Yeah it could."

Cloud turned around and saw a third Cloud that had appeared just now. "Hi. So, uh... seems like you guys are having the talk. Which is great and all, but I'm here after I went back and told myself not to go back, but then decided to go back anyway? Anyway, turns out Zack being alive gives Sephiroth an extra set of hands. Aeris dies, like... _way_ sooner than she was supposed to."

The second Cloud frowned. "That doesn't seem fair." 

"So -- so should I just go kill Sephiroth?" asked Cloud. "Seems like that's sort of the common, uh --"

"Tried that," came a voice from behind him. Another Cloud had appeared, this one wearing a Shinra uniform covered in soot. "Shinra doesn't take it well. They crack down pretty hard on dissidents after that, Avalanche gets wiped out after the first mission. Why were you planning on joining Shinra in the first place? We both know you're gonna get asked to kill at least one person you're trying to save. If I were you -- which I am, by the way -- I'd just go directly after the president."

"What? No. Don't do that," said a fifth Cloud that had arrived in another flash of light. "Why are we trying to change anything anyway? All things considered, everything worked out pretty well for us."

"I -- I mean, Zack --" Cloud glanced between the other four, at a loss for words. "We should try, right?"

"Sure, if you feel like gambling with the seven other people that made it out of everything alive," said the fifth Cloud. "Think of how many times we almost died in non-Nibelheim circumstances."

"...So you're saying, we shouldn't go back in time to save and/or kill anyone," said the third Cloud. 

"No! Yes?" the fifth Cloud blinked. "Wh -- you shouldn't. Just leave it for the love of --"

"All of you need to clear out!"

They all turned to see a sixth Cloud arrive, holding a duplicate of the bag that was currently strung over Cloud's back. "I'm here to tell everyone that we shouldn't go back and tell me I shouldn't go back in time."

"But we shouldn't," said the fourth Cloud. "Unless -- maybe we should? I kind of had this plan for the next time around where I could just lay low as a farmer or a janitor or something --"

"No, you definitely shouldn't," said the sixth Cloud. "But you shouldn't go back and say you shouldn't, because then that'll lead to someone else going back to try and -- shit, that's me, isn't it?" he said abruptly. "Wait --"

A seventh Cloud appeared. "Hey, whichever one of you was gonna go back to tell myself not to go back to tell myself not to go back, don't do that. Besides, we can just handle it ourselves. What we _need_ to do is go back even earlier, when we're like six, and convince Vincent to take down the company from the inside."

"I tried that already," said the second Cloud. "He slammed his stupid coffin in my face the second I mentioned the L-word. Maybe he wasn't over it at that point?"

"All of you are doing this wrong," said an eighth Cloud. "What we needed to do was take over Shinra from the inside with Reeve."

"That takes too long," said a ninth Cloud, appearing next to the fourth, "and Hojo figures things out too fast."

"Should we just kill Hojo, then?" said the fourth Cloud. "Think of everything _that_ could solve."

"What part of 'you guys need to stop coming here' didn't you get?" said a tenth Cloud, tripping over a fallen pew as available standing room in the church gradually lessened. "And here I am making it worse. Look, things are already pretty good."

"Did you try finding Aeris early?" said an eleventh Cloud. 

Six more appeared. "Actually --" they all began at once. 

The church was getting rather crowded now. 

"Get Ma in on things! Ma knows what she's doing --"

"Just hide out with Tifa at Zack's place for a while --"

"Ascend to a higher plane of existence and summon Holy yourself --"

"If you find Gast, maybe he'll kill the Jenova Project before it begins!"

"Just talk things out with Mother. Everything will be fine. We promise."

“Make out with yourself at least once, just to see --”

"If you talk to Zack too early it gets Barret killed --"

"Kill Sephiroth --"

"Seduce Sephiroth --"

"Seduce the President --"

"Guys, we don't have much time!" said a stranger that had appeared in a burst of blue light. "The peace treaty signing is -- um." He swallowed at the thirty-something pairs of eyes suddenly fixed on him. "Hey, uh... junkie Prompto." He coughed. "I'll go." 

He disappeared again. The seventeenth Cloud frowned. "...junkie Prompto...?"

Cloud snatched the gun from the fourth Cloud's uniform and fired it through the air, causing the crowd to flinch. "Should I or should I not go back and kill, save, or fuck anyone?"

_"No!"_

"Yes!" The entire crowd turned to glare at the eighth Cloud, who swallowed nervously. "I -- I mean, no."

"...Well, alright then."

And upon deciding so, the other thirty-odd Clouds vanished in a puff of time paradox. 

Cloud blinked. What had he been doing here? Something to do with Nibelheim... he looked around the Sector 5 church, trying to get his thoughts in order. 

That's right. The Planet had given him a second chance to go back and fix everything. If he just went back and changed the right things, maybe he could keep Nibelheim from burning entirely. Sephiroth would never go mad, Meteor would never fall. Aeris, Zack, his mother... he'd save them all. 

"Don't do it!" came a voice from behind him, as another Cloud appeared in a flash of light. 

**Author's Note:**

> yes i swear i'm working on an actual update literally right now, put your pitchforks down
> 
> pls stop writing these i beg of you


End file.
